


When the Ashes Settle

by HatWithLegs, orphan_account



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Accidental Bonding, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Angst, Arson, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, High School, How Do I Tag, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Jake Dillinger in a Wheelchair, M/M, Not Really Character Death, Pining, Post-Squip Jeremy Heere, Post-Squip Rich Goranski, Presumed Dead, Rich Goranski-centric, Virtual Reality
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-09
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:48:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26906140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HatWithLegs/pseuds/HatWithLegs, https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Rich was dead.Wow. That was, uh, hard for Jeremy to say. That kid who partially ruined his life and then was his frenemy for a month-and-a-half under dubious circumstances was dead.Jeremy, along with the rest of the junior class, was given a very harsh reminder of his own mortality. Rich was only sixteen and now he was gone.Except, maybe he wasn't.
Relationships: Jake Dillinger & Rich Goranski, Jeremy Heere & Michael Mell, Rich Goranski & Jeremy Heere, Rich Goranski/Jeremy Heere
Comments: 7
Kudos: 20





	1. Chapter 1

It was two weeks after the Halloween house fire, and Jeremy didn't know what to make of things.

Richard Goranksi was dead. He had to be. There was a minute of silence held over the loudspeakers as a sort of pseudo-memorial. Footage of the funeral was widespread across the student body. The local cemetery displayed a headstone with the words **_RICHARD GORANSKI, GONE TOO SOON_ ** emblazoned on the front. Commotions rang out through the hallway as his locker was cleared out. Hell, they even cancelled the school play out of some sort of weird solidarity towards the late actor (if you could even call him that).

Obviously, Richard Goranski was 100% kaput, six feet under, up among the angels, and whatever other strange euphemisms parents use when they’re scared the word _dead_ will put their kid into psychological shock.

So Jeremy just couldn’t wrap his head around exactly _why_ he thought he saw the teen still running around the halls.

Maybe he should give a little context. 

oO0Oo

_Three days after the fire._

The play. It was cancelled, thank god, and the entirety of the day after the fire was spent with an uncomfortably silent junior class. It was also the day Michael finally located some Mountain Dew Red for Jeremy. It was, well, a tense day. Apologies diluted by the migraine of the century and passing out in your best friend's basement aren’t quite the picture-perfect reunion. But any reunion after someone was mind-controlled by an abusive Wintergreen techno roofie was bound to be problematic.

The worst part of the whole situation was figuring out how he was going to play it off with the rest of the bigshot crew. Being one of the coolest guys in school and suddenly reverting to your geekish self was somewhat suspicious, and with what happened with Christine at the party, he couldn’t afford to lose any more social points.

His biggest concern was maintaining a positive relationship with Jake. The poor kid had lost his house, his ability to play most sports, _and_ his best friend in under twenty-four hours. Such a traumatic combination would most certainly lead to a mess of emotions. Anger bled into suspicion faster than red wine staining a white blouse. Fighting was something Jeremy would never forget after his parents' divorce.

Soon enough, days spent home recovering from his 'seizure' blurred together and now it was a week after the fire.

It was Jeremy’s first day at school after the play. With his Squip gone, everything seemed so _unpredictable_. Every door that swung open a little too fast felt like Jeremy’s whole world was being turned upside-down. Anxiety wormed its way into his head when he realized how dependent he had become on instructions. 

The day passed like a biting breeze. Everyone gossiped in muted voices, eager to add their own additions to the Rich Rumor Stockpile before the topic became stale. Some of the buzzes Jeremy heard were eerily close to the truth, others couldn't be further from it. It was so incredibly _aggravating_ to see a tragedy warped into such a misshapen attempt at entertainment by the student body. No care was given to Rich. Jenna Rolan was one of the of the greatest examples of such disrespect. The mass of stories that poured from her feed was something to behold. Twitter almost became a part-time job for her in the days following the fire.

Chloe and Brooke acted as her lackeys, helping create new rumors and seeing how their old ones fared. Despite the low work ethic of the trio, it was surprisingly efficient. If Jenna didn't fib half of her rumors, she would make an exceptional reporter. 

Jake, who was left to his own devices, was a bit of an enigma. Legs mangled and in pain, stuck in the foster system, and dealing with might very well have been undiagnosed PTSD, he was Middleborough's poster boy of misery. No one said that to his face, of course. It was a gamble saying anything to him. It appeared the sentiment he had was "only I can say negative things about Rich and if you even try to I'll punch your face in". Which had happened before when a freshman loudly declared his contempt for that, to quote, "fucking psychopath" at the cafeteria. 

When Jake heard that they'd be clearing out Rich's locker at the end of the week, he had gotten into a shouting match with the principal. When he saw that said locker had been vandalized the next day, he almost had been suspended.

Jeremy had been trying his best to patch up the holes in the hull of his relationship with Michael. Rocky didn't even begin to describe it. Jeremy had sabotaged his own ship and now every step forward felt like it would lead him overboard. No more lifeboats. He supposed he deserved that. 

But he tried his damned best.

"Hey, Michael!" Jeremy called out, jogging to catch up with him in the hallway. The final bell had rung a couple of minutes ago, though Michael stuck around since he had promised Jeremy a ride home. Jeremy had been held back by a teacher, giving the halls time to clear out. "Sorry, Mr. Hampton held me back to check on me," the brunette stuttered out, nervously chuckling towards the end. 

"Figures. He's always been like that." Michael smirked. Jeremy breathed a silent sigh of relief. It was a hit-or-miss with Michael, and lately, it had predictably been the latter.

"Yeah, like, dude, we didn't ask for concern." Jeremy spitballed. It didn't land, and Michael started browsing his phone. It was different before. Keeping a conversation going was effortless; as easy as breathing. Now it felt like playing minesweeper. Jeremy was never really good at that game. 

"Do you-" Jeremy started before he could force himself to wimp out. "Do you think we'll ever be 'normal' again?"

Pausing briefly only to give Jeremy a glance, Michael shrugged. "It hurt a lot when you blew me off like that. I was trying to help you at the party and it was suddenly 'Michael's the bad guy'. Chewing me out for your own mistake." Sighing, he slipped his phone into his hoodie pocket. "But I'm also partially to blame. I kept telling you to ignore your problems before the whole," he waved his hand. "'Drug addiction'. I would have freaked if you did that to me, but you put up with it for months. I wasn't fair to you, so it was inevitable that you were going to try and find your own solution. It just so happened that your solution was the worst one you could have chosen."

Silence hung in the air.

"So, to stop beating around the bush, yeah, we'll be normal again. I don't know when, but I do know it will take effort on both our ends. Hopefully not too much." he quipped at the end. Jeremy forced a chuckle to keep the atmosphere alive. 

They pushed the school doors open to the parking lot. Michael's PT Cruiser stuck out like a sore thumb among the sea of far more modern cars. "You ever gonna get a car that doesn't look like it burst free from Some Like It Hot?" Jeremy teased. The two had watched that movie during a New Year's Eve sleepover in sixth grade. It had become an inside joke for the pair, who remembered it purely for the ending. 

"How _dare_ you?!" Michael gasped in mock offense. "You _know_ that my baby girl is a 2007 model!"

" _Nobody's perfect._ " Jeremy recited. The two burst out into boisterous laughter, only stopping when they noticed someone waiting by Michael's car.

"Jake?" Michael called out, speeding up to a jog to meet the other boy. Jake looked up from his lap, which to Jeremy's mild surprise was phone-free. "I thought you got transferred to the ramp bus. What are you doing here?"

"Why the hell would you care?" Jake snapped. Realizing his aggression, he took a couple seconds to smooth himself out. "Sorry, just tense. I need a ride. My foster parents think I'm at a friend's house, but I want to go to my old one."

It took a couple of seconds for the two to process. "Wait, why?" Jeremy asked, Michael gesturing he thought the same.

Jake grit his teeth, clearly trying his best to be civil. "They never found Rich's body in the rubble of the house. _Someone_ went through it before the cops could do a look around and no one knows where his remains are. It's really fucked up, the fact that Rich's final known resting place will be that godforsaken house." Shifting slightly to his left, Jake shuffled around his backpack and pulled out a small bouquet of flowers. "I wanted to pay my respects, since I don't know where his headstone is in the cemetery, and besides, that's not really where he was laid to rest."

Michael and Jeremy stood in stunned silence.

Abruptly, Jake cut in again. "If that'd be ok with you guys. If not, it'd be really nice if you could give me a lift back to my foster house so I don't have to call them and tell them I lied."

Though his tone was rather apathetic, there was a touch of sincerity behind it. Jeremy glanced at Michael, giving an _'I'm up for it, are you?'_ look. Michael nodded in return. Jake smirked at the jingle of keys and the click of the car doors unlocking that followed. 

"Yeah, we're up for it. Do you need help getting in the car or-?"

Michael was cut off by Jake snapping the back car door open and hoisting himself inside. He tossed his backpack beside him and folded up his wheelchair, placing it between his legs and the front seat.

"Well then," Jeremy hummed, climbing into the passenger seat while Michael got the car started. "Off to- wait, what was your old address again?"

"2592 L'eau de Parc Lane." Jake snarkily replied.

"Hold up, you lived on a road that translates to _park water_?" Jeremy inquired, miffed. 

"No one cares how stupid shit sounds if it's in French."

"Well in that case," Jeremy started. "J'aime plaire aux incendiaires fantômes."


	2. Chapter 2

_ November ʂıʄცą18@;$-, 20#; _

Great. Rich's internal clock was messed up. The icing on top of this shit-stained cake. The clock drifted in the top-right corner of his vision, backed by nothing. 

A void of absolutely nothing.

Not the kind of nothing that was pitch black or completely white, no. It was like how you can't see what's behind you. 

And it was frightening.

Rich had no goddamn clue where he was. A thought in the back of his mind kept telling him that he was  _ dead _ , but that couldn't be true, could it?

He couldn't be dead. He was only 16, that fire at the party was just a dumb fluke. A spur of the moment decision. He had to be in a coma or some weird fever dream. He had to have another chance. He had to just wake up and carry on with life as usual.  _ There was no way he was dead _ .

There was a sensation of movement as Rich fell to his knees. This wasn't a coma. This wasn't a coma but it had to be because if this wasn't a coma then he would be dead and Rich couldn't be  _ dead _ .

He was shaking. He was shaking and hyperventilating and it didn't feel right why was there not enough resistance why did it feel so wrong and-

"It took you 10 minutes to fall into a spiral. Huh. For the first time in forever, I think I might have overestimated you by guessing 15."

Rich felt the chilling sensation of nausea creeping up his sides. 

"Oh, don't be like that, honey. I thought that you were more than a nervous wreck.”

A tall, grim figure stepped into Rich’s view. She was his mother, almost. Technically they were visually identical, but they weren’t the same. His Squip was too cruel, too calculated, too lifeless. He could  _ never _ mistake the two.

"You brought this on yourself. I tried to help you but  _ no _ , I have to be the  _ bad guy _ ." she taunted, grabbing Rich's jaw. Long fingernails dug into Rich's cheeks. "You should really maintain eye contact when talking to someone, dearie. It gives off a bad impression if you don't. An impression that says that you're a little socially awkward imp who doesn't deserve your attention."

He was going to be sick.

"Not here you aren't," she chuckled, the sick bitch. Always in his head. "Which is a shame, it would have served you right, you know. Punishing you for never getting rid of that emetophobia."

Rich pulled himself from her grasp, rubbing over the bruising of her hand. He looked around once again, which was quite fruitless considering nothing had changed. "N-Not here?" Rich stuttered out. "Where the hell is 'here'?"

His Squip ignored him, continuing her mocking lecture. "I thought you were unstable, but  _ this _ , darling, takes the cake. Setting a fire, burning your supposed 'friend's’ house to nothing but cinders, and crippling him for  _ life _ ! You’ve ticked all of the boxes in My Mistakes Bingo, have you not?"

Rich opened his mouth to speak but was cut off by his Squip's callous laughter. "Poor Jakey D; bound to a wheelchair and cursed with a limp if he ever recovers.  _ If _ being the operative word."

Any semblance of words died in Rich's throat. It felt like he couldn't breathe. Jake was hurt because of him. Jake was homeless because of him.  _ Because of him _ .

"Jake's f-fine, he has to be. Even, e-even if he's in a wheelchair he's  _ fine _ because Jake, Jake's strong and he'd be ok and happy and he's ok because he has to be ok-"

"Save your breath, however ironic the phrase might now be." his Squip snapped. 

"What the fuck do you mean?!" Rich wailed, pulling his legs up to his chest. His Squip paused, a wicked grin frozen on her face. She bent down until she was eye-to-eye with Rich.

"Richard, you're dead."

oO0Oo

The ride to the remains of Jake's old house was quiet. Jake didn't find Jeremy's French quip as funny as the Jeremy hoped he would, and silence seemed mandatory.

Michael quietly played reggae and the usually silent drumming of his fingers sounded like reverberating thunder, though if Jake was irritated he showed no signs. He was stoic as ever and staring out of the window. He seemed relatively calm, but his white-knuckled grip on the bouquet told otherwise. Though Jake was determined to keep his gaze locked on the car window, Jeremy knew he wasn't actually looking out of it. His eyes were too still to be processing anything behind the glass. Unnerving, almost. Jeremy could only guess he was thinking about Rich. Something that led to nothing good.

The current song ended and another one - Jeremy could only assume Bob Marley - picked up the slack. "Take a picture, it'll last longer." Jake bit out. Jeremy jumped before sheepishly gluing his gaze to his lap. Shuffling was heard to his left before Jake sighed out. "Sorry, just irritable. I hate the way everyone's been staring at me lately. Like I need help. I don't." Sourly hissing the last part out, Jake turned to Jeremy. "He, well, uh,  _ Rich _ , talked a lot about you during October. It was really sudden, especially considering how he, how he  _ treated _ you before…" A pause, with presumably more thinking. "Sorry I never stopped him. It was wrong, no matter how much I liked the guy. Anyways, did something happen between you two where he suddenly started to like you?"

Jeremy frowned. Keeping Squips a secret was crucial, but explaining his and Rich's relationship without them was rather difficult. "We, we got our hands on some ecstasy and had some bro bonding time, I guess…" Jeremy offered. Micheal nearly choked in the front seat and Jake looked- wait, Jake looked happy?

"Rich always said he wanted to try ecstasy before he died. Glad to know he had that wish fulfilled."

Jeremy not-so-subtly blanched and Michael broke out in hysterics, leaving Jake rather confused. “What?”

“N-nothing!” Jeremy stuttered out. “Nothing. Just a-an inside joke between me and Michael, haha…”

Michael turned the car onto L'eau de Parc Lane, and everyone in the vehicle promptly shut up.

oO0Oo

_ "Richard, you're dead." _

Everything came to a screaming halt.

Tinnitus filled Rich's head and he felt nauseatingly dizzy. 

Dead. Dead; he was dead. He had died; that fire, he died in that fire, and now he was dead. Dead as in you don't get a second chance you are no more, dead; he was  _ dead _ oh God he was  _ dead _ he was  _ fucking dead holy fucking shit he was dead- _

"Funny how words lose their meaning when you use them too much."

His Squip smiled down at him, but it was too wide, too tight, too forced. "What do you want?" Rich croaked out, desperate to get that horrid expression off her face.

"You're dead. This place you’re in? It's a cyber-reality of the real world. Of course, it doesn't look like that because there are no hosts around to generate it for you."

_ Hosts to generate it… _

"Is that why you wanted me to Squip the school? So even if I died I could keep on living?" Rich blurted. His Squip wore a smug, tilted grin.

"Took you long enough. Your condition was unstable enough that I predicted, to be blunt, a fatal outcome in a week or two. I just didn't know you would be such a fool and mess up everything I planned for you."

Sensations Rich couldn't even begin to explain ran though his arms as he pushed himself up. "You  _ knew  _ I was _ going to die  _ and you  _ let it happen?! _ " he yelled.

"It was only going to be a minor inconvenience. I suppose we'll now have to wait for Jeremy to pick up your slack." Rich's Squip idly picked at her nails, sneering at the boy while she did so.

"J-Jeremy won't let this happen! He won't let you do this!"

A quick bark of a laugh was all the emotion she spared before gripping Rich's shoulders. The boy yelped. His Squip only snarled. "He either succeeds or you and I are stuck in this abyss for the rest of eternity. Either way, you lose."

She let go and Rich sagged, tears brimming in his eyes. "N-no…"

"Oh, Richard. Don't be like that. If you're a good boy, in three months time I can have you-"

She went silent. 

A rare occurrence for her.

"There's no way, he couldn't have. That blasted boy! He-"

As if struck from behind, Rich's Squip shrieked and arched her back. The mass of pixels that was her form began to almost melt, her voice doing the auditory equivalent.

"R-d has b——th-re'- no w– h—— s-m–l—— s— a—a -@$-+'!#()&±№;:«‡—"

A horrifying scene of his mother's visual clone gasping for air and disintegrating into nothingness played out before Rich. Screams echoed in his ears even after it was over.

He couldn't tell how long he stood there, watching the same spot where she had stood.

It was constricting. His ears rang and everything itched and the silence was overwhelming. His thoughts kept amplifying themselves, using the lack of stimulation as an echo chamber. Rich wailed, pulling at his hair. Anything to make it stop. It got so bad that at one point the only thing in his head was  _ fire, fire, fire, _ on repeat. Too soft and too loud. Too much.

It would have gone on like that forever unless a red PT Cruiser and the surrounding radius of scenery it carried finally broke into the void.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
> 
> Ok ok so the things I shall explain this chapter! 
> 
> Emetophobia is the fear of vomit or vomiting
> 
> And ecstasy is a hallucinatory drug, usually in the shape of a colorful pill that slightly resembles Lucky Charms marshmallows. It's around 30$ a pill in the US. (But you probably already knew all that)
> 
> Danke to HatWithLegs for betaing!


	3. Chapter 3

The ruins of 2592 L'eau de Parc Lane were like a bad dream coming true. You could tell it was Jake's old house. Not by appearance, but because that Halloween night would never leave your mind. Ashen remains of walls and floors stood low to the ground. It reminded Jeremy of horror movie sets before the fog machines were turned on. 

The car rolled to a stop, pulling up next to the curb and cutting the engine. Michael was the first out, opening Jake's door and offering a hand. Jake swatted it away and unfolded his wheelchair on the street. It was obvious he wasn't used to maneuvering the chair but Jeremy doubted Jake would let them help him. 

They started up the driveway, mindful of the scattered bits of debris. It felt surreal. Jeremy could see the charred framework for the staircase Chloe led him up. The dinner table held itself up with two legs, melted wads of solo cups stuck to its surface. Counters blackened by soot and ash framed the remnants of the kitchen walls.

Shelled and desolate, 2592 L'eau de Parc Lane was a ghost of a house.

Jake sat in the middle of it all, his backpack in his lap. Jeremy swore his eyes were watering. The former pulled out his bouquet, full of white carnations and zinnias. 

"White carnations are supposed to be for remembrance, and zinnias are friends or something. Do you think Rich would have liked that?" Jake asked softly, voice thick with grief. Jeremy and Michael remained silent.

"Cause he always talked about how gay flowers were, but I think, deep down, he really liked them. He was like that, dickish to everyone but who he was close to. We were a lot a like. We shared struggles. He felt like the only person I could be vulnerable with, even if he berated me for it afterwards."

Jake turned away and looked towards the woods behind the rubble. "It makes it even harder to deal with this. He hurt people. I don't know how much, or how many, but he did. But he was there for me when I needed it. Truly  _ there _ . No emotional barriers." 

Wet splashes sounded out as tears fell from Jake's face to the ground. He turned back to Michael and Jeremy, red-faced with a broken smile as silent sobs began to hinder his monologue.

"I mean, do I even have the right to mourn him? He was a terrible person-", a whimper, "and I don't get to erase what he did but-"

Jake curled in on himself. Ugly sobs rang out through the ruins. Jeremy made a move to comfort Jake but Michael beat him to it, already by the boy’s side offering a hug. Unsurprisingly, Jake didn’t take it, but he did settle for clutching Michael’s hand. That was probably for the better, seeing that comfort was something Jeremy could hardly offer; all of his attempts to do so we're dampened by his sheer lack of social skills.

Jeremy fumbled with his hands as he did his best to stay occupied. Scanning the area didn’t do much for the cause, as all Jeremy spotted was some litter, fresh graffiti, and someone standing in the woods behind the house-

Jeremy blinked, rubbing his eyes. He did a double-take. They were still there, lurking. It was getting dark, why the hell was there someone in the woods? “H-holy shit…” Jeremy breathed.

“What?” Michael asked as he turned to Jeremy. Jake had just finished placing the bouquet down, turning to look as well.

Jeremy pointed at the figure. “Someone’s i-in the woods.”

"That isn't funny." Jake hissed, sniffing. Michael gave a disapproving look.

"I don't see anyone, Jere."

The figure swayed slightly but showed no signs of trying to move. Just standing.

"Let's go," Jake grumbled, starting towards the car. Michael brushed shoulders with Jeremy as he joined Jake. Jeremy followed, glancing back to see the figure still there in the woods.

oO0Oo

As much as he hated it, Rich truly understood the phrase "you won't miss it until it's gone". Being devoid of everything for God knows how long will do that to you. 

Jeremy was there. Or, at least, if Jeremy didn't Squip anyone else, Jeremy was there. He hoped so. Why was he there? That didn't matter. What mattered was that Rich could  _ feel _ again and he just needed to take a breather. Which is what he would have done had Jake not pulled himself out of the car.

Was he Squiped? Could Jake see him? Oh God, if Jake was Squiped it was all his fault.

But none of the boys looked at him. They didn't even spare him a glance. Soft voices carried a conversation but Rich couldn’t quite understand it. The conversation lulled and Jake pulled out a bouquet of flowers. 

Rich squinted. White carnations. His heart stopped.

White carnations meant remembrance.

Surely they were in remembrance of the house, right? Maybe to the memories there. No one else died in that fire, they couldn't have.

A voice in the back of his head told Rich otherwise.

Maybe Jake didn't know what white carnations meant? Maybe he just chose flowers he thought were pretty.  _ Maybe he brought them to mourn Rich?  _

No no no, he was obviously there to mourn the house. No other explanation made sense- or relieved Rich's conscience. Rich was hardly what you could call a  _ friend _ to Jake. He constantly berated him for every one of his mistakes, tried to one-up him whenever he could, never offered anything more than 'bro fists' for moral support, and burned down his fucking house. Why in God's name would Jake ever lay flowers for him? Never mind how much Rich wished that was why he was here.

Then Jeremy pointed at him, eyes wide and hands shaking. “Someone’s i-in the woods.” Rich stilled. Jeremy could see him. Of course, Jeremy could see him! Did he recognize him? It was a bit late and he was in the shade, but then again, Jeremy probably had Rich's face imprinted in his memory.  _ Don't dwell on why. _

"I don't see anyone, Jer." the glasses kid replied. Which was funny, because he was looking right at Rich. Which meant that he hadn't been Squiped.

Rich smiled and quickly scolded himself. Just because one kid wasn't Squiped didn't mean more couldn't be. But, if Jeremy was traveling with this person, wouldn't he be Squiped anyways? 

Jake turned and started to wheel himself away, Jeremy and the other boy in tow. It was when the car's engine started that Rich remembered that if he didn't follow them that he would once again be stuck in that void of nothingness.

oO0Oo

Jeremy nearly screamed when he turned a hallway and saw what appeared to be Rich Goranski darting into the cafeteria. The hallway was empty, it was nine in the morning and that was  _ definitely _ a kid, so who else could it be? Yeah, sure, Jeremy could have done a quick confirmation by just sticking his head in the door, but the janitor had just walked out of it, and to hell if Jeremy was gonna stick around any longer. No one messed with the janitor. 

He could've brushed the incident off as seeing things had he not seen Rich Goranski again in the school library, browsing through books on the shelf. Jeremy  _ had _ to be seeing things. Rich despised reading, claiming it was a waste of his time. The sheer number of cafeteria spiels dedicated to bashing his English teacher and all of the reading assignments in her class was something to behold; and while the Squip certainly would have made Rich act differently, it wouldn't have erased  _ that _ much, right?

The copy of  _ Tess of the Road _ he saw in Rich's grasp made Jeremy doubt that. 

Ok, so seeing Rich in the school doing not Rich-like things twice was a little frightening, but there had to be a way to explain it. Maybe he had a guilty conscience? Like that once Shakespeare character. What was his name? Hamilton, Hannibal, no- Hamlet! Like Hamlet. 

But a fictional play written by an old white dude in the 16th century…

Rationale was of rather low supply in this situation and Jeremy doubted he could conjure any more. 

School ended thirty minutes ago, and Michael had just dropped Jeremy off at his house. Their relationship had been improving since they taxied Jake over to his old house a week ago, but it was far from where it used to be, something made evident by the awkward silence that encompassed the car for the entirety of the drive. It was a mixed feeling of relief and guilt when they finally pulled into Jeremy's driveway.

Nevermind that. Keys clinked as the teenage boy opened the front door, giving a quick touch to the mezuzah before stepping inside. The front door led to a mudroom fit with a coat rack, a shoe rack, and a very happy boxer dog barking at Jeremy's feet.

"Yeah, yeah, just a second, BamBam," Jeremy laughed, kicking his shoes off and hanging his schoolbag on one of the hooks mounted to the wall. BamBam spun around, docked tail compensated for by the entirety of his hindquarters wagging with it. Chuckling, Jeremy opened the garage door and flicked the light on, going to get the dog leash. He stopped in his tracks when he saw what was inside.

Sitting on top of a garbage can, National Geographic magazine in hand, was Richard Goranksi, charred but still alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoes, bros, and I-don't-knows, here it is! (Yes BamBam is a self-insert of my own dog but he has plot relevance I swear)
> 
> HatWithLegs, thank you for betaing this chapter!


	4. Chapter 4

Jeremy screamed and Rich yelped, falling off of the trashcan and tumbling to the ground. BamBam launched himself at the poor boy, jumping on top of him. Well, not really. Rich certainly felt it, based on the yelp he gave, but BamBam seemingly went  _ through _ him. Needless to say, the sight scared the hell out of everyone there. The dog lost it, barking like the world was going to end, and Jeremy tripped over his own feet trying to back away. "H-holy mother of shit," Jeremy breathed. "I'm going f-fucking insane!"

Rich fought to get up, sputtering unintelligible snippets of sentences as BamBam continued to nip at him. "BamBam!" Jeremy cried, earning the dog's attention. The boxer ran over to his owner, his nub of a tail wagging as he covered Jeremy's face in kisses.

"I-I'm not-"  _ I'm not dead. _ "I mean- you're not insane! I promise," Rich faltered. God, he  _ wished _ he could say that he wasn't dead. What a sentence that was.

Jeremy gaped at Rich, paying no attention to the comfort BamBam was trying to bring. “Y-you’re a ghost? Are ghosts real? But-  _ fuck, _ no, no, no I’m going crazy, you’re not real!” 

"Then why did your dog lose his shit?" Rich questioned, pushing himself off the concrete floor of the garage. BamBam let out a warning growl as he continued to saddle next to Jeremy. 

"He, he, i-it's a coincidence. Or, he sensed distress!" Jeremy retreated across the floor, bumping into the coat rack mounted to the wall. "You're n-not real. You a-are not real!"

A few quick strides were all it took for Rich to reach the doorway. He paused, a hand on the doorframe, when Jeremy whimpered. "I promise I'm real," Rich started. "I think your dog can very much tell you that." As if on cue, BamBam barked, lunging at Rich, who nearly fell over.

"Fuck, I'm talking to a ghost…" Jeremy groaned.

"Technically," Rich started, gesturing with his hands. "I'm more of a simulation than a ghost. It's because of my-"  _ Squip _ . Wait…

No Squip would ever let their user have such a reaction. Panic was never tolerated. And yet, Jeremy was still staring at him, wide-eyed and on the brink of hyperventilating.

"Your Squip is off, isn't it?"

Jeremy swallowed and carefully nodded. "Mi-Michael got Mountain Dew Red a couple of days after the fire."

"That's—how can you—what?" Rich fumbled. If Jeremy's Squip was off, how could he see him? "I- I'm in a sort-of cyber hell because my Squip uploaded my conscience. How can you see me?"

"It, uh, maybe it's dormant?" Jeremy supplied. "S-sometimes I still hear it at n-night…"

There was an overhanging pause as both struggled to find something to say. Guilt washed over Rich as Jeremy was still struggling to process the entire situation. "S-so, you're, uh, you're… dead?" Jeremy asked in a hushed voice. Rich nodded. 

"Apparently, when you die with a Squip, you don't really die. I'm stuck here."

"In my house?" Jeremy queried. 

"No-" Rich sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "With  _ you _ ." He waved a hand in Jeremy's direction.

"Oh…" So, there  _ was _ a reasonable explanation as to why Jeremy saw Rich roaming around the school. "S-so why  _ did _ BamBam lose his mind if you're not really," Jeremy snapped his fingers, trying to find the right word. "Present?"

“Who the fuck is BamBam?”

Jeremy gnawed on his lip. “BamBam is the dog’s name, Rich…”

“Oh,” Rich mouthed, sliding down into a kneel. He offered a hand towards BamBam, who took a tentative sniff. “Like you said—a sixth sense, maybe?” BamBam gave Rich’s hand a lick—or, well, as close to a lick the ghost could get—before his tail began to go into full gear now that the supposed intruder was revealed to be a friend. Rich beamed, clearly equally as excited as his new-found pal.

Silence settled and Rich realized that it would probably be a little awkward for him to always lurk wherever Jeremy went. "I,  _ fuck. _ I'm sorry if I come off as needy, but could I stay with you? Be your shadow? I don't know how to explain it, but I'm kind of stuck in your vicinity and it would make life miles easier if I didn't have to stay out of sight." 

"Y-you've been following me… for a week?" Jeremy mumbled. Rich's eyes bulged as he realized the connotations of said statement.

"Not c-cause I  _ wanted _ to or anything, and I-I wasn't really anything  _ near _ creepy with it, I've only been in your garage and  _ shit _ that's really creepy-" 

Jeremy cut him off. "No, no, it's fine. I just find that kind of impressive, that's all.”

Rich nodded slowly, brushing himself off. “So… Is that a yes?”

“On one condition,” Jeremy cautioned. Rich swallowed. “You tell me how the hell you picked up that magazine.”

"Oh! Uh, it's pretty easy I guess. My world is generated, see, so I can pick up little objects cause it'll simulate them for me," Rich explained while waving his hands around. Jeremy chuckled.

"I have no goddamn clue what you just said."

oO0Oo

Rich was rather astounded by how interesting Jeremy's house was. Of course, everyone's home life was different in its own right, but Jeremy topped everyone Rich knew. That fact was probably aided by the fact that Jeremy was the first Jewish person Rich had ever met, but it was interesting none-the-less. 

The first thing Rich noticed was the sheer amount of candles in the house. "They're for Shabbat, a sort of break day on Saturday. I try to light them before sunset usually." Jeremy explained.

The second was the little metal cylinders stuck to some doorways, which Jeremy explained were mezuzot. Rich found them fascinating, the intricate designs, the history behind them, and the fact that every one of them had a slip of paper inside of them. Jeremy almost looked embarrassed when Rich traced a finger over the raised details of the case. 

"Shit, am I not supposed to touch it?" Rich asked, jerking his hand away from the mezuzah placed outside of the basement door. 

"N-no, it's fine, you can touch it," Jeremy started. He tugged at his cardigan sleeves while looking anywhere but at Rich. "It's just, I dunno. It's kind of like if I walked into your house and started marveling at your bed? I'm used to mezuzot and it's been a while since anyone who isn't acquainted with them has come over."

That wasn't the first time Jeremy had been embarrassed by Rich's infatuation with literally anything that looked cool. Jeremy was pretty miffed when Rich asked him to open the breadbox to see how it worked, but the pure wonder in Rich's eyes certainly made up for it.

Jeremy grew a little concerned when Rich asked about the knife block sitting on the kitchen counter. "Do you not know what a knife block is?"

"I've never really seen one. Jake had a knife rack and other than that I've never been in the kitchen of anyone else's house."

The taller boy frowned. "How do you store knives in your own home?"

"We don't have knives in the house anymore."

Jeremy didn't want to know why. 

Eventually, the two settled in the living room, Rich on the ground playing with BamBam and Jeremy flicking through shows to watch. Mr. Heere wouldn't be home until around five, according to Jeremy, so they had an hour to kill. 

A show by the name of  _ Good Omens _ caught Rich's eye, with the fancy thumbnail art and whatnot. Jeremy figured that since he always had access to the tv and Rich did not, the latter should get a bit more sway in what was displayed. 

"So…" Jeremy started. They had been watching for a while, halfway through the first episode. "I have a mini futon in my room if you want to sleep there." he offered. Rich waved him off, not bothering to turn away from the show.

"I don't need to sleep. I'll be fine."

"Can you even sleep?"

Rich rolled from his stomach to his back so he could look at Jeremy. "I mean, yeah, but–"  _ I have nightmares about the fire. I can never get more than thirty minutes of sleep before I wake up screaming. I'm such a fucking wuss cause I'm terrified of dozing off. _ "It feels uncomfortable? I dunno how to explain it."

"Won't you get bored?"

Rich shook his head. "I got National Geographic, man! Nothing can top pictures of giraffe corpses and animals that could kill you with a glance."

They both laughed and BamBam howled. As Rich went back to watching the show– did he flinch at that bottle of wine on screen?– Jeremy felt a pang as he fully absorbed the situation. Rich was dead. Jeremy was the only person who could see him. God, if something happened to Jeremy, would Rich be stuck in purgatory for the rest of eternity? How did his cyberworld work? Would he die if it glitched?

Jeremy shook his head. That wasn't now. Now was watching Crowley drunkenly rant about dolphins and enjoying the blessing that was Rich here, now.

Yeah, this would work out swell. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Danke danke HatWithLegs!
> 
> There's not much to explain this time lol
> 
> Have a nice day!

**Author's Note:**

> Aaaaaaaaaaaaa  
> Ok ok sooo
> 
> The ending to Some Like it Hot: https://youtu.be/-mHhr-aaLnI
> 
> The French at the end roughly translates to "I like pleasing ghost arsonists"
> 
> Big thankies from McSpankies to HatWithLegs for betaing this fic! It would be half the fic it is today without you


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